Refocus: The Films of Roberta Findlay - Refocus: The American Directors by Peter Alilunas & Whitney Strub Hardcover

About the Book

The first book on the renowned and notorious cult filmmaker Roberta Findlay

Book Synopsis

ReFocus: The Films of Roberta Findlay covers a variety of angles, using queer, feminist, historical, and close textual reading methods to grapple with the complicated and contradictory politics and meanings of this pioneering culture-worker. Chapters examine Findlay's marketing strategies, the gender politics of her exploitation and hardcore films, 1980s horror productions, and several case studies of key individual films, in addition to a new interview with Findlay reflecting on her life and career.

Review Quotes

A beautifully curated and engaging collection of some of the most important voices in porn studies and cult cinema. These essays reflect the continued evolution of the field and the important work of canonizing overlooked yet profoundly significant filmmakers such as Findlay.

A pioneering, prolific filmmaker who disdains her historical contributions to several male-dominated industries. A self-proclaimed misogynist who has been reclaimed as an unlikely "feminist" auteur. This fascinating new collection shines a much-needed spotlight on the many contradictions of Roberta Findlay, and is sure to become essential reading for scholars of adult and exploitation cinema.

About the Author

Peter Alilunas is an Associate Professor of Cinema Studies at the University of Oregon. He is the author of Smutty Little Movies: The Creation and Regulation of Adult Video (2016).

Whitney Strub is an Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University-Newark. He is co-editor of Porno Chic and the Sex Wars: American Sexual Representation in the 1970s (2016) and author of Perversion for Profit: The Politics of Pornography and the Rise of the New Right (2011).